Time Of The Marauders
by AikenClay
Summary: Can a secret between friends pull them apart, and what is the meaning of the Marauders being friends?


It had become something that the remains of Hogwarts would never forget; voices sounding across the dark corridors of voices left behind. In the slanted light flickering from the ever burning candles that lie on the statues of the Hogwarts founders, a slight picture of a past prefect could quickly become visible for a few seconds before turning into nothing but an immortal flame. In the dark despair that crept up on anybody that had entered the water filled deugons, a soft voice telling off people with insults and jokes could barely be heard of a voice lost forever in past Hogwarts memory. During the night hours, when the castle stood against the backdrop of the black night sky with only its' lights to guide wandering students, anybody who had happened to be staring out the window overlooking the quidditch field would be able to see a glint of gold of a past quidditch game. Though all of this had been nothing but a memory, it had started as something that would stand out and never let Hogwarts forget who these people were.  
  
It had been nearly morning, the sunlight from the now rising sun crept slowly up the field and onto the windowsill beside the bed of a sleeping boy. This boy had been known as a troublemaker, who even as he slept was considered to be a danger towards anybody who dared to enter his room unguarded. His jet black hair had been sticking out at odd angles, making him appear like he had just gotten off of his broomstick after playing out on the field. His bangs gently rested slightly above his hazel colored eyes, and his hand lay off to the side with his pair of glasses in his hand. Even as he slept with the morning hour approaching, a smile had been playing across his round face. It had been his wish to stay up at all hours of the night, because he could not believe that he was only a week away from attending Hogwarts like his father and mother had done. James Potter snapped his eyes opened and stared at the spinning corners of his room until he realized that he had not yet placed his glasses over his eyes. He placed his glasses on and stared at the room before sitting up and tossing the covers of off him and onto the floor. He smiled as his bedroom door opened and the slanted figure of his father walked inside the room.  
  
James Potter could not remember a time where his father had not showed up without looking quite pale and tired, because his father worked on some top secret project for the Ministry of Magic and stayed up more then half the night at his job. Whenever his father did come home from work, which had been a really rare occasion, he was either half tired or sleeping in his own bedroom. His father had been only slightly thin, just like his son, and had short neat jet black hair unlike his son. He had glasses as well, except his had been square, and always wore a new neat set of black wizard robes.  
  
"Are you ready, or at least awake, to get going to Diagon Alley to pick up your Hogwarts things. It's not every day that you get to pick things up for your very first year at Hogwarts. I remember how unprepared I had been before heading off on the train and how my mother had to send most of my things by owl, but I do not want that to happen to my son. I guess you really are growing up, aren't you." his father spoke in a soft tone, half filled with rememberence and half not wanting to wake his wife up who was asleep in the next room. He had never fully understood why his wife would wake up at the crack of dawn to plant a garden the muggle way when she had been quite capable of using magic, having been the top student in her year. He had been a bit of a troublemaker which he half wanted not to pass down to James and half did.  
  
"You do not have to worry about me missing out on this chance. Can I get a new broom so that I could tryout for the quidditch team, and I know that I wouldn't be able to til my second year but it would be so much fun to just have one in my hands? Do you think that I would meet some new kids that actually like playing pranks on people or will they all be angry at me for trying?" James had barely any breath left when he had finished talking, and whatever energy he had left went towards pulling off his pajamas where he was also wearing a red and gold Gryffindor sweater that his father had given him that was his and a pair of muggle blue jeans which were a new gift from his mother. James thought for a moment about brushing back his hair but changed his mind while looking in his bedroom mirror to see that his bed head look had been working for him. He thought about never brushing his hair and just leaving it the way it was when he woke up at Hogwarts, but then he remembered how his mother might react at him keeping his hair that way.  
  
"We will have to see about a new broom, James. I thought that your old one was still working fine, despite the fact that you ran it into the tree that your mother is fixing the muggle way. Can you at least try to be more careful and not get expelled your first week? Well, it is time to go so let us get some floo powder from the kitchen." his father spoke this sentence softly too, but it was more on the off chance that he might be able to calm his son's excitement. They both quietly made their way downstairs and through the hallways towards the kitchen, where their house elf was preparing the family lunch for that afternoon. James could see slight burn marks on the elf's hands either from playing to rough with the pans or from trying to punish itself. The elf wore the most ragged sack for clothing, but a smile had been on his face as he flipped pancakes, which James loved to eat at lunch.  
  
The trip to Diagon Alley had almost been far from eventful in James' point of view. It turns out that a few people who worked in the shops they visited were friends of his father, who kept talking about his job while James stood in the distance watching. When they went to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, James was able to watch a sandy haired boy of about eleven skip out on paying the bill for his food but only to be caught and brought back in the work for the day, while his father fambled on about what had happened at his office that week and his own school boy memories. James had thought about sneaking over to talk to that boy, but his father lifted him off of the seat like a one year old and marched him out of the door to be fitted with robes. His father laughed gentle at a young boy with black hair who had been trying to swipe a pair of of clothing from the shelves and run out the door with it. When they had last reached Quality Quidditch Supplies, his favorite shop of them all what with the golden snitches, fast racing brooms, quidditch posters of famous teams, and talk of a new team forming, his father had allowed him to buy a new broomstick. He had been told that he was allowed to use it only in his second year to tryout to be on his house team or outside with his friends as long as he was in the castle by dark. Behind James' grin and silent nod, had been the thought that his father would never know what he was doing unless he got in so much trouble that an owl was required to be sent home. 


End file.
